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Routine Ruse in Men’s Soccer Tumbles Into Women’s World Cup

The Brazilian defender Erika after she dropped to the turf in overtime.Credit
Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

COLOGNE, Germany — There often seems to be more diving in soccer than in the Summer Olympics. Phantom contact, or the slightest collision, can lead to theatrical belly flops and exaggerated somersaults by players deceptively trying to draw fouls on their opponents, kill time or catch a breather when tired. A player writhes on the ground, seemingly unable to continue, and is whisked away on a stretcher, only to return moments later, miraculously healed.

At least that’s the routine in the men’s game. Viewers of the Women’s World Cup semifinals Wednesday may notice that, by comparison, the fake collapses are scarce — a curious distinction between the two games that raises tricky questions. Do female players compete with more integrity? Or has the women’s game simply not caught up with the men yet?

“I actually think women don’t like that side of the game,” said Julie Foudy, a former United States national team captain. “But my cynical side tells me that as women get more sophisticated and watch the game more and the stakes get higher, it will become more prevalent.”

The act of diving, as the fake falls are called, is crafty or cynical, artful gamesmanship or outright cheating, depending on one’s view. Although the use of the ruse was clearly evident on Sunday during the United States’ riveting World Cup quarterfinal victory over Brazil, the relative lack of this tactic in women’s soccer was captured in a study conducted at Wake Forest University. Researchers determined that women were much less likely than men to dive and fake injuries, an act also known as simulation.

The study reviewed video of 47 matches from the 2003 and 2007 Women’s World Cups and compared injury rates with men’s matches in regional tournaments. Apparent injuries were divided into two categories. They were considered “definite” if a player was replaced within five minutes or was visibly bleeding. Otherwise, the injuries were considered “questionable.”

Researchers found that an average of 11.26 apparent injuries occurred in men’s matches, compared with 5.74 in women’s matches. Those considered “definite” involved 13.7 percent of injuries for women and 7.2 percent for men.

“We can say that men writhe on the ground looking like they’re injured more than women, almost twice as often,” said Dr. Daryl Rosenbaum, the lead author of the study, which was published in the July issue of the journal Research in Sports Medicine. “And when players are apparently injured, the percentage when it was authentic by our criteria was twice as high with women. You could trust more that they were injured.”

Still, the study did find evidence of diving in women’s soccer, and it played a key role in the outcome of Sunday’s match.

Photo

Erika soon returned to the field.Credit
FIFA

Late in overtime, the Brazilian defender Erika dropped to the turf in front of her goal with no American player nearby. She was placed on a stretcher, only to climb off and soon return to the field. It was a clear act of feigning injury to kill time, as Brazil was trying to protect its 2-1 lead. Erika was given a yellow-card warning for stalling, which extended the game and allowed the Americans to tie the score. They won in a penalty-kick shootout.

“It’s frustrating to play against that,” said Christie Rampone, the captain of the American team, which will face France in the semifinals on Wednesday.

At the same time, Rampone said before the match, “When you see the calls being made, you ask, ‘Why aren’t we doing it?’ You start questioning yourself.”

The Wake Forest researchers found six apparent injuries per match during the 2007 Women’s World Cup, while team physicians reported only 2.3 injuries per match. For the 2003 and 2007 World Cups, the rate of “definite” injuries was 0.78 per match, compared with 4.96 “questionable” injuries per match.

“It looks like there may be some simulation in the women’s game,” said Rosenbaum, a sports medicine physician at the Wake Forest School of Medicine who also serves as a team doctor for the United States Soccer Federation.

But with the rates so different between men and women, questions arise about whether simulation is part of the nature of soccer or reflects inherent differences among the participants.

Rosenbaum offers two theories. One is that the greater visibility and higher financial stakes in men’s soccer lead to more gamesmanship.

“You could say the pressure and money are more immense, so they’ll resort to anything to avoid embarrassment to the country or to the team,” Rosenbaum said. “But women will argue that they care as much.”

Second, Rosenbaum said, the larger size and greater speed of men may lead to more frequent and forceful contact between players.

Brandi Chastain, who scored the winning penalty kick and famously set off a jersey-waving celebration for the United States in the 1999 Women’s World Cup, offered a third theory: women’s soccer has more integrity, at least for now.

She noted that men’s soccer had a head start, organizing its first World Cup in 1930, while women did not hold a world championship until 1991. Leaders of the pioneering American teams of the 1990s steered away from gamesmanship, Chastain said.

“They didn’t like cheating,” she said. “They wanted to play straight up — you give your best, I give my best and the best effort will win.”

Foudy, the former United States captain who is now an analyst for ESPN, said she thought men had embraced a nuance of the game that women were still learning.

“Men have a tendency to draw the foul much better than women,” she said. “They know and understand pressure, when to go down even though they’re not hit hard. Some are brilliant at it. Women play far too honest sometimes. They take the hit, ride the tackle and stay on their feet. I do think that will change.”

The Wake Forest study indicated that female players from South America tended to dive somewhat more often than other women, Rosenbaum said. This was no surprise to American players who say that the Brazilians, in particular, are practiced in the clever art of simulation, perhaps because they grew up immersed in a soccer culture in which it is commonplace.

On Sunday, the Brazilians claimed that Abby Wambach, the top American forward, was diving. Candidly, Wambach said beforehand that she had used the tactic, but made a distinction between what she considered legitimate simulation and unsporting embellishment.

“If a player said they never dived, they’re lying,” Wambach said. “But no one wants to be known for that. If you don’t get touched and you go down just to get a penalty, that’s cheating. If you get hit not hard enough to be knocked down or knocked off the ball but physical enough that you might lose possession, I understand.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 12, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Routine Ruse in Men’s Soccer Tumbles Into Women’s World Cup. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe